Alexander Joel
Highlights for 2012/2013 included his succesful debut with "La Boheme" in Covent Garden (resulting in an immediate re-invtation for the season 2014/2015), as well as new productions of Madama Butterfly at the Staatsoper Hamburg (Shown on ARTE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt1gictKhig) and the Grand Theatre de Genève, and Die Fledermaus at the Oslo Opera. Furthermore, he will conduct Revival runs of Don Giovanni and Fledermaus at the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden, Madama Butterfly at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Don Carlos at the Staatsoper Hamburg.
Plans for the season 2013/2014 include new productions of Verdi's "Macbeth" at the Royal Opera Copenhagen, Wagner's "Parsifal" at the Opera de Montpellier, "Otello" at the Teatro Municipale in Santiago di Chile, and his return for his 4th new production at the Vlaamse Opera where he will conduct a Premiere of Mozart's "Don Giovanni". He will also return for a 7th consecutive season to the Hamburg State Opera, where will conduct the revival of "La Traviata", and at the Staatsoper Dresden he will return to conduct a run of "Lustige Witwe". He will also make his debuts in concert with the WDR Köln and the BBC Philharmonic.
In the last seasons, he has a been a regular guest conductor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Tosca, La Boheme), the Staatsoper Hamburg (La Boheme, Le Nozze di Figaro, Carmen and Madama Butterfly), the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden (La Boheme, Macbeth, Barbiere di Siviglia, Faust (New Production with Keith Warner), and Fledermaus), the opera house Cologne (La Boheme), and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Tosca, La Boheme, Nabucco, Zauberflöte, Turco in Italia Premiere, Ballo in maschera). He also conducted 3 highly acclaimed Premieres at the Vlaamse opera, Richard Strauss’s Frau ohne Schatten (Stage Director:Arturo Marelli), Don Carlos (Stage Director: Peter Konwitchny), and La Forza del Destino (Stage Director:Michael Thalheimer)
Alexander Joel has been guesting regularly in Opera houses such as the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich (where he conducted Entführung aus dem Serail and Fledermaus for 3 seasons in a row), at the Finnish National Opera Helsinki, the Teatro Regio di Parma, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Tokyo New national Theatr, the Opera in Cologne, the Teatro Municipal di Santiago di Chile and the Semper Oper Dresden.
Alexander Joel has been Generalmuskdirektor at the Staatstheater Braunschweig since the 2007/2008 Season, where he conducted over 70 Concert Programmes and conducted Operas such as Salome, Lady Macbeth from Mzensk, Lohengrin, Rosenkavalier, Tristan and Isolde, and Parsifal. He will be giving up this position at the end of the season 2013/2014 to concentrate more on his growing international guest engagements.
Alexander Joel also regularly conducts numerous renowned orchestras on the concert podium, including such orchestras as the DSO Berlin, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Duisburger Philharmoniker the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Gürzenich Orchester Köln, MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, RSO Wien, Bruckner Orchester Linz, Orchestre de Nancy. He has worked with prominent stage-directors such as Nicolas Joel, Marco Arturo Marelli, Peter Konwitschny and Keith Warner as well as soloists such as Yuri Bashmet, Julian Rachlin, Mischa Maisky, Rudolf Buchbinder, and Sabine Meyer, and Singers such as Juan Diego Florez, Sir Thomas Allen, Samuel Ramey, Violetta Urmana, Diana Damrau or Catherine Malfitano.
Alexander Joel was first Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein from the 2001/02 season till the 2006/2007 season, where he conducted a very large repertoire of over 35 different operas as well as 9 premieres. At the age of 24 he gave his debut at the Opera in Nürnberg and his first steady engagements led him to Kapellmeister positions at the Stadttheater Baden, the Stadttheater Klagenfurt and at the Wiener Volksoper.
In 1990, after a brief spell studying french and english law at King's college in London, Alexander Joel began studying piano (and later also composition) at the Vienna Academy of Music, before starting his conducting studies in 1991 at the Vienna Conservatory of Music (under Prof. Mark and Prof. Schwarz), where he graduated with Honours in 1996. He was prize winner at European Conducting Competition in Spoleto (Italy) that same year. During his studies, he attended numerous master-classes (including the 1996 conducting master-classes in Tanglewood). After his studies, he worked as an assistant to Julius Rudel, Muhai Tang (Royal Opera Stockholm) and Gustav Kuhn.